Former Lake Dallas High School Star QB Sued for $1 Million After Joining Texas Tech

Here’s a headline that simply couldn’t have existed just a few years ago: Star College Athlete Switches Schools, Gets Sued for Breach of Contract. 

Not only does that headline exist now, with increasing regularity, it involves a prominent former North Texas high school quarterback. On Wednesday, the University of Cincinnati sued former Lake Dallas quarterback Brendan Sorsby for $1 million in federal court for leaving the school to play at Texas Tech in the upcoming football season. 

Cincinnati is but the most recent stop for the three-star recruit. After graduating high school, Sorsby played for University of Indiana for two seasons before joining the Bearcats in 2024, where over the course of two seasons, he racked up impressive stats, all-conference honrs and became the top-rated transfer prospect in this year’s transfer portal class. 

That position led him to land a one-year name, image and likeness (NIL) deal for $5 million to play for the Red Raiders in 2026. The folks at Texas Tech even paid for a massive Times Square billboard to welcome Sorsby to Lubbock. As it turns out, that didn’t sit well with Sorsby’s old school. 

“In his lucrative NIL agreement with Cincinnati Athletics, Brendan Sorsby committed to stay and play for two seasons as a proud Bearcat representative,” the University of Cincinnati said in a statement to ESPN. “He also agreed that if he left the university before that time, he would pay the university a specific amount for the substantial harm that his breach would cause.”

The school says that amount is $1 million in liquidated damages and, according to the ESPN report, they have been “advised that Sorsby refuses to pay the University anything.”

Predictably, however, Sorsby’s representative doesn’t see eye-to-eye with the school. 

“University of Cincinnati, through its revenue-share structure, paid Sorsby $875,800 for a season he fully completed and in that time, he generated millions in value for the program,”  Ron Slavin said in a statement provided to Courthouse News on Thursday. “Attempting to recover those funds now sends the wrong message to current and future student-athletes and risks damaging the long-term credibility of Cincinnati football.” 

There was a time when NCAA athletes were prohibited from accepting payments of any kind and would have to sit out an entire year before being able to play for a new school after transferring. But such amateur status rules are a thing of the past, thanks to the current era of the transfer portal, where athletes can switch schools every year and still play without interruption, and big-time NIL money.   

The NIL era is only five seasons old, with the 2021 campaign being the first time college athletes were allowed by the NCAA to earn money after the Supreme Court’s landmark Alston v. NCAA ruling, followed by many states passing legislation allowing for student athletes to make money off of their own name, image and likeness. It’s a new frontier, and according to 1310 The Ticket’s Sean Bass, the University of Cincinnati has a right to handle its business, but that may come at a competitive cost in these unpredictable times. 

“I think Sorsby should absolutely pay his exit fee [if that is] part of his agreement,” the co-host of the Ticket’s The Sweet Spot said. “I think Cincy going after their money could scare off some potential transfers, but they appear in the right. I could see Texas Tech paying his exit fee.”

According to ESPN, similar lawsuits have been filed recently, including one from the University of Georgia against edge rusher Damon Wilson and another from Duke University, who recently sued quarterback Darian Mensah before reaching an out-of-court settlement in January. Texas Tech has been arguably the most aggressive school in the nation when it comes to pursuing athletes in the transfer portal with big-money offers. The Red Raiders had their best-ever season in 2025, reaching the second round of the college football playoffs.

For another !310 host, Matt McClearin of The Invasion, this lawsuit is just another sign that a new era has arrived.

“No one can seem to agree on what parameters should be in place,” he said. “And until [everyone] realizes that the student-athlete days are over and that the players are now employees, things won’t change. Players need to be able to unionize and have a collective bargaining agreement so there are defined and agreed upon parameters to operate within.”

Bass places the blame for all of the current uncertainty at the feet of the NCAA and the major conferences who tend to look out only for their own interests, instead of what is best for the respective sports. 

“This is just another example of the NCAA being neutered and having no actual governing body oversee the business side of this new NIL world,” he said.